EPROM Tuning Software

[some1else]

Hey guys I just got it working. I loaded marks file and the other guys file had the aldl dump command wrong. 57 instead of 56. Thats cool. Now there's one big problem. I can see the graphic displays (only 2) but I can't see any of the numeric values. The screens are just blank. It's almost as if they aren't on. I'm wondering if this is a programming bug?

[HaulnA$$]

Can you send me a copy of Marks .ads file. If I get a chance, I will check it out tomorrow in the AutoProm. TIA

P.S. Which ALDL cable are you using?

[some1else]

HaulinA$$
File sent.

I'm using my own cable:
www.diagnosticcables.com

*edit*

I found out my problem

from the FAQ page on mark's site:
3. Nothing appears in the ALDL Data or ALDL Bits pages. Why not?

You need to have the latest Rich Edit module installed (particularly for Win98/95 users). You can download it here. Unzip this file to your Windows *or* Windows System(32) directory. Altenately, you can also simply unzip it in your TunerPro RT install folder directory.

Once I do this I should have the tunerpro data logging working completely with 0D / 16197427 ECM . I'm interested to try the CSV format. I'm pretty handy with matlab and excell. I'll let you all know how it works out.

[some1else]

got it working completely now! Sweet deal. Can't wait for a wideband or an autoprom!

[95nProgress]

Could you $0D guys send me a copy of your spark maps both the open throttle and closed throttle. Could you also please give a little description of what your engine and mods etc. are? I am in the middle of tweaking my spark maps and would like some examples. Thanks in advance.

[some1else]

Originally Posted by 95nProgress

Could you $0D guys send me a copy of your spark maps both the open throttle and closed throttle. Could you also please give a little description of what your engine and mods etc. are? I am in the middle of tweaking my spark maps and would like some examples. Thanks in advance.

Right now I'm running the stock BJYL tune (for a tahoe).
Hey, where'd you get your afr's?

[HaulnA$$]

Originally Posted by 95nProgress

Could you $0D guys send me a copy of your spark maps both the open throttle and closed throttle. Could you also please give a little description of what your engine and mods etc. are? I am in the middle of tweaking my spark maps and would like some examples. Thanks in advance.

No, I won't give you a copy of my spark maps but, I will do you one better, I will tell you how to do it yourself. That is the whole point. I can't tune your truck from a distance, but I can share what I've learned so you can tune your truck which you have right in front of you. This is the only way to truly tune a vehicle and get it right, hands on. O.K. lets begin.
Spark tuning should be broken up into four different areas. Idle, part throttle cruise, wide open throttle, and decelleration. Each area representing different engine loads and different tuning. Whenever possible, start with your stock timing table as they are usually not that far off from where you need to be but can be improved substantially. Obviously, a timing table from a 3/4 ton 4x4 EC 350 TBI is gonna be different from a 1/2 ton 2wd RC 350 TBI due to the 1000 lb. weight difference.
Idle. This one is easy. Tune timing for the most engine vacuum (least KPa) during idle. If tuning an automatic, do it in D and the brake on.
Part throttle. Now it gets a little tougher. Find a loooong flat stretch of road. Tune at various RPM's (change gears) for maximum data points. Make a run down the road at a specific TPS value and RPM by using different gears. Note vehicle speed. Make timing changes and repeat. Do this until the vehicle reaches the highest speed for a given TPS value. Use the least amount of timing needed to achieve this. Next, move on to a long stretch of downhill road and uphill road and repeat. This step will require the most time to get right. When it comes to timing, don't believe what you hear. More is not better.
Wide open throtle. Now it gets even tougher yet. A general rule for WOT timing for Trucks especially is that max timing during WOT will be somewhere near or slightly above or below idle timing. Lighter vehicles may like a little more timing here. Find an isolated stretch of road or do this on test-n-tune night at the strip. Make small timing changes then check the results with either your datalogger (I like to use the 0-60 and 1/4 mile calculators), a G-Tech meter or your time slip. If you use your timeslip, tune for best trap speed rather than E.T. as this is a better indicator of power. Don't trust your seat of the pants meter as it can easily fool you. The data doesn't lie.
Decelleration. This is easy. If you have an automatic truck. set the timing the same as the nearest part throttle areas tuned. If you have a stick, you may elect to retard the timing in the 20 Kpa area by 4-6 degrees to aid in decelleration compression braking. If you do this with an auto, you may overheat the tranny.
Some final thoughts. As for closed throttle timing, I set it exactly the same as open throttle since only a few areas of this table are ever used. Each engine/vehicle combination is different and therefore requires different tuning. In short, give the engine what it wants, not what you think it needs. Generally, aluminum headed engines can run more timing due to lower combustion chamber temps. Detonation is caused by excessive combustion chamber temps. If your tripping the knock sensor, it may be because of what was happening just before. If your engine likes more timing but you are tripping the knock sensor, try a colder thermostat or richer mixture to cool the cc or something else. Use your head. Research and learn as much as possible. Don't go by "well this guy said, or that guy said". It seems to me, too many people are too quick to try something they heard or some yahoo told them about instead of doing the research. Now I rant. JMHO HTH

[badburban]

Guys listen to HaulinA$$. a genious. Everytime he hits the nail on the head. Great explanations and well worded.

Guys could you do me a favor. I completely updated my prom burning article. Cqan you re-read it and make sure everything I say is correct, grammatically decent, well explained, etc. Thanks I appreciate it.

http://www.fullsizechevy.com/forum/s...5&page=1&pp=20

Josh

[95nProgress]

Hauln, thank you very much for the instructions and guidance. I was really kinda taking pot shots at my timing maps and you have given me a pretty clear plan of action.
Since my head and cam swap I have been running a modified spark map derived from my Ed Wright stage I chip. I was experiencing a knock sense at random areas but I didn't really notice any detonation(hearing and also looking at the plugs) but I went ahead and decresed timing in thoes areas on the map. The knock reads were still there. I think that I was chasing a false knock read. I read on thirdgen.org about a 90deg tee on the KS would make it a little less sensitive so I put one on. This got rid of almost all of the knock reads.
With the base timing set at 0deg the truck ran better than stock but really didn't seem to be THAT(head & cam) much better. So I turned the base timing up 6deg and it started to come to life. At the time, one of my areas of concern was at part throttle cruise (45-50mph) to WOT I would occasionally get a backfire through the TBI. I was fortunate enough to get it to do this while I was dataloging one time and saw the problem. That area of the map was around 9deg of timing. This is what, (parden the pun) "sparked" my desire to further tweak my spark map. (Ohh that was bad....)
With my setup(see signature) what would you suggest for a starting baseling timing setting? The actual distributor is at 6deg timing (read with the computer timing control wire disconnected). Do I also need to change the basline timing in the constants area of the program? And if so what will this do to how it feels right now? Will it drop it back to where it meets the timing of the timing charts?
Also, for the idle tuning, basically I want to tune the timing for the lowest map while idling in drive with the brake on? (I.E. Idle in drive at 700rpm, change timing values until map reading is at its lowest?)


Thanks


Stuckatcuse, I purchaced my AFR heads and the cam from a very helpful guy on e-bay. He was going to do this setup but changed his mind. (He already was running 13.8sec 1/4mile with his stock heads ported!)

Brian

[95nProgress]

Josh, That is the article that made me contact you the first time. It is great!, you should submit that to a magazine or something!

Brian

[HaulnA$$]

95nProgress, here's what I'd do if I were you. I would set the base timing back to 0. When you advanced the base timiing 6 deg., you found that in some areas it liked it and in others it didn't (i.e. the backfire during cruise). Many people fall into the trap of believing more timing is better. Totally false. We with computer controlled timing enjoy the best of all worlds in that we have total control of the engines timing in all areas. This is great. O.K. now why would I set the base back to 0. There are two reasons. First, when you advance base timing too much, you can run into hard restart problems. All engines like very little to no timing at startup, especially hot. Second, and most important is that since we have total timing control, why not give the engine what it wants via the timing table instead of faking it out by telling the PCM that base timing is at 0 when it is really at 6. Some guys like to fake out the PCM this way and sometimes it is actually necessary (I wont get into that here) but I don't because then you have to re-calculate actual timing if you don't change the constants. Why not let the PCM have total control and read correctly. If you set everything back to a known good starting point and follow the guide in my previous post, you will find what the engine wants. As for clarification on idle timing, you are correct. Lowest MAP reading during idle in D, brake on. You may find that as you increase timing, the MAP reading drops then as you keep going the MAP stays the same. This is universally true, you want the least amount of timing for maximum performance. If you found that idle MAP was best at 24 deg. to 28 deg., set the timing to 24 deg. Lastly, as for dealing with percieved false knock (i.e. the engine wants more timing but the knock circuit is removing timing), the first thing I do is put in a cooler thermostat. HTH

[HaulnA$$]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that when I tune timing, I eliminate as many spark adders/subtractors as possible. I zero out the PE spark table (and leave it this way). I disable EGR and zero out the EGR spark adder. I make sure the engine is at temp so that Coolant spark doesn't (or zero out the area where the engine operates if I have swapped to a cooler t-stat) come in, then I disable ESC (error 43). This way I know that none of these things are affecting timing and I can tune with the least amount of variables invloved.

[95nProgress]

Thanks for the info. I will set my timing at the distributor back to zero and modify my timing charts from there. Its funny, I was looking at my datalogs and saw a flat spot in the RPM around 4200-4400. I looked at my PE spark and saw a crazy 4.4 increase in timing at 4400rpm! I zeroed the PE table out and am gonna do another datalog tonight.

For the part throttle curize timing, do you know of any "real time" way to do this?

Oh, and by the way, I do have a 170deg thermostat.

Thanks for the info, it is greatly appreciated!

Brian

[HaulnA$$]

The only way to tune "real time" is with an Emulator (a device that emulates an Eprom but can be altered on the fly), but that is definetly an advanced tool plus there are many other more beneficial tools to get before an emulator. It is too easy to melt pistons when playing with timing, especially if it leans out. Burn a few chips with small changes in them and go datalogging. Analyze the data and repeat. Once you get a feel for what changes affect what, things will go quicker. As mentioned in the articles, it takes a while to get the knack, usually many chips.

[Greenbuggy]

Something I've been toying with the idea of buying but haven't got the cash for right now is the Xtronics pockt romulator, an EEPROM emulator for $179, unlike the autoprom it doesn't burn chips but its a lot cheaper than $325.

Right now my problem is a severe lack of truck...parted out my '72 since the cab was junk and sold cort (Farkum) the engine/454 TBI setup, I'm looking at a nice blue '67 LWB right now, kept the TBI harness & computer I retrofitted EFI onto the '72 with and that will surely go on the next 67-72 truck I buy.

I'm definitely interested in actually doing some tuning beyond just the EFI swap on the old truck when I get it, and the idea of using flash-prom instead of EEPROM is appealing - can someone point me to what chip I'll need to use to replace the EEPROM in a 1227747 ECM, and where I can purchase one?

[HaulnA$$]

Unfortuneatly there is no direct flash replacement for the 2732 in your ECM, however all is not lost. With an adapter, you can use either a 29C256 or 27SF512 chip. You can either burn your .bin file to the upper most 4K, stack the same .bin 8 or 16 times (depending on which chip you use) and burn it, or my favorite, use a switching adapter and burn multiple .bins on the same chip and switch between them. All of the chips and adapters are available at www.moates.net . TunerPro has a .bin stacking feature. HTH

[95nProgress]

Transmission controls...

Tuning is going good, fuel is almost right on, 128 at cruise etc., turned the FP up to 13 and am getting around 12.7afr at high RPM WOT. Set idle spark and found 25.5deg to be the sweet spot(lowest kpa). I am now playing with the cruise spark settings and then the WOT spark settings.

I have noticed something with my transmission. When comming to a stop I feel a surge and then a release, and sometimes the engine rpm drops below target idle. With my datalog i see what is going on. At the change from 5 to 4 mph the TCC DC (torque converter clutch duty cycle) goes from 90.19 to 0. I believe this is the point where the TCC lets go for idle conditions. I have looked at my $0D parameters and cannot see where I can change this. I would like to raise the mph or smooth this operation out. Does anybody know what to do?

Thanks in advance

Brian

No matter what info/data is looked up the only right way to do it is give the engine what it wants, not what you think it wants.

[some1else]

I've got some good mods in the works... (454 TBI, Weiand 7525 Manifold, Ported L98 Heads). I want to start practicing tuning now. I know I need to eliminate as many free parameters as necessary. I don't have a wb-02 yet so I'll just be tuning for cruise.
Here are my questions:
How do I eliminate PE mode? Is there a flag? I'm running $OD_02.ecu in tunerpro. I see the WOT delay and WOT RPM. I don't see a TPS constant though? Can anyone demistify this for me?
What are the AFR Mode words in the flags dialog?
How do I get the transmission to allow the engine to rev past 4500 RPM? (I should make power up to about 6K with my new setup.)
I can't tune for Positive manifold pressures, so my goal is to keep my afr correct at positive pressures. (Perhaps tune WOT AFR vs RPM table incorporating my boost-referenced FPR.) Then I'll leave the AFPR screw in the same point and tune my negative manifold pressure vs. RPM and spark tables?
Does this sound like a good strategy?
Thanks

[HaulnA$$]

Originally Posted by 95nProgress

Transmission controls...

Tuning is going good, fuel is almost right on, 128 at cruise etc., turned the FP up to 13 and am getting around 12.7afr at high RPM WOT. Set idle spark and found 25.5deg to be the sweet spot(lowest kpa). I am now playing with the cruise spark settings and then the WOT spark settings.

I have noticed something with my transmission. When comming to a stop I feel a surge and then a release, and sometimes the engine rpm drops below target idle. With my datalog i see what is going on. At the change from 5 to 4 mph the TCC DC (torque converter clutch duty cycle) goes from 90.19 to 0. I believe this is the point where the TCC lets go for idle conditions. I have looked at my $0D parameters and cannot see where I can change this. I would like to raise the mph or smooth this operation out. Does anybody know what to do?

Thanks in advance

Brian

No matter what info/data is looked up the only right way to do it is give the engine what it wants, not what you think it wants.

I have briefly looked at the TCC DC data before and cannot make any sense of it. Here is what I know and have verified. The "Torque Converter Engage/Release vs TPS" tables control where the converter locks up/releases. This can be verified by a light accelleration through all gears. When the converter locks up, it feels like it has shifted into a 5th gear. Tap on the brake pedal and the converter releases then re-engages. This brings me to my next point. As long as the brake is on the converter will not lock. Look at the "TCC Enable" status bit in the transmission data display. When this bit is off, the converter will not lock. Also look at the "Slip RPM" data. When the converter is locked, the slip RPM will be zero or very close to it. When the converter is unlocked, there will be significant slip RPM. I'm not sure what is causing your surge without seeing the data. Could be fuel or spark related, possibly when the PCM switches from the off idle fuel and spark tables to the idle stuff. I have seen that before. HTH

EDIT: You might want to check this out. Not specific to our PCM but very infofmative. http://www.diy-efi.org/gmecm/papers/tcc.txt

[HaulnA$$]

Originally Posted by stuckatcuse

I've got some good mods in the works... (454 TBI, Weiand 7525 Manifold, Ported L98 Heads). I want to start practicing tuning now. I know I need to eliminate as many free parameters as necessary. I don't have a wb-02 yet so I'll just be tuning for cruise.
Here are my questions:
How do I eliminate PE mode? Is there a flag? I'm running $OD_02.ecu in tunerpro. I see the WOT delay and WOT RPM. I don't see a TPS constant though? Can anyone demistify this for me?
What are the AFR Mode words in the flags dialog?
How do I get the transmission to allow the engine to rev past 4500 RPM? (I should make power up to about 6K with my new setup.)
I can't tune for Positive manifold pressures, so my goal is to keep my afr correct at positive pressures. (Perhaps tune WOT AFR vs RPM table incorporating my boost-referenced FPR.) Then I'll leave the AFPR screw in the same point and tune my negative manifold pressure vs. RPM and spark tables?
Does this sound like a good strategy?
Thanks

O.K., first of all, let me clear up a common misconception. PE (Power Enrichment) and WOT (Wide Open Throttle) are essentially the same thing. Technically, WOT is just that, wide open throttle (TPS = 100%), however, having said that, for tuning purposes, the terms are interchangeable. There are two ways to disable PE, but be warned. Unless you have a stockpile of pistons and enjoy replacing them, disabling PE can make you dangerously lean under load and cause severe detonation. I personally would not attempt this without a WB O2 sensor. There are two entry points into PE. The first one is the "TPS Threshold vs RPM for WOT" table. This table works in conjunction with the "WOT Delay Period" and the "RPM to Bypass WOT Delay" constants. Once the PCM sees the TPS threshold to enter PE, the delay is then engaged and runs until one of three things happens before actually entering PE. First, the delay runs and times out, or, second, the bypass RPM is reached which bypasses the delay, or, third, the other entry into PE is engaged. This other entry to PE is the "TPS Threshold vs RPM for WOT (Fast)" table. The way this works is when the PCM sees the TPS threshold in this table, it immediately goes into PE without any other qualifiers. Now, how do you disable PE? The first way is to set these TPS thresholds to maximum so that PE is never engaged or you can leave these alone and set the "WOT AFR vs RPM" table to 14.7 across the board. This should demistify PE and WOT. The AFR mode words are bit words to enable/disable different operating modes and/or routines such as selecting automatic or manual trans, charcoal canister purge, etc. To raise the shift points in WOT, use the 'Normal Kickdown" (kickdown is basically WOT for the tranny) speed and RPM constants, just be sure to play with the upshift and downshift points. Your datalogs will help alot here. As for your fueling strategy, it looks like that should work, just be careful. HTH